A look back on 32 years at George Mason

Rena Malai — Fri, 24 Jun 2022 15:05:04 +0000

A look back on 32 years at George Mason Rena Malai Fri, 06/24/2022 - 11:05

During college, Kathryn Laskey, professor of Systems Engineering and Operations Research and associate director of the C4I Center, liked playing the guitar. Once life quickly got busy with family and career, the guitar was placed on hold.

But now, at the start of her retirement after wrapping up 32 years at George Mason University, the guitar might make a comeback.

“I enjoy having music in my life and I’ll probably get back to that,” she says.

It’s been a fulfilling time at Mason for Laskey and she says it’s been gratifying to be a part of seeing the campus grow from a small, little-known niche to a thriving, world-class research university in a major metropolis.

“When I started, the engineering building was a parking lot. There were no parking garages. My office was in a trailer. There were few people. But over the years, I have seen such tremendous shifts in both structural growth and community and pride. Now when you walk up to a student and ask them where they go, they proudly say ‘George Mason.’”

Given its location and talented staff, Laskey knew when she first came on board that Mason would be a part of bigger and greater things. That potential was one of the reasons she wanted to be here.

“I’ve run into people who haven’t been to Mason in maybe a decade or two, and it’s unrecognizable to them now. The George Mason name is known worldwide as a great school,” she says.

Laskey says it’s been an incredible 32 years, and just a few of her accomplishments include starting the Center for Resilient and Sustainable Communities, and pioneering research within AI which was early in its explosive growth when Laskey first joined Mason. She has more than 150 peer reviewed publications and is on the Board of Directors of the International Society of Information Fusion and the Washington Metropolitan Area chapter of the International Council on Systems Engineering; she is past president of the Association for Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence.

She’ll still keep her hand in research, she says, and is currently working on a few items. One is a machine learning project that will aid in predicting ground water levels, in order to support drilling wells for agricultural needs. Another is a project on expanding digital opportunity in Tribal communities.

Although she says she doesn’t have definite retirement plans per se, music, time with grandkids and staying involved in research projects will keep her busy for the time being.

Besides her job, interacting with her students and colleagues, Laskey says she will also miss the beauty of the Fairfax Campus.

“It’s a bittersweet time in starting a new chapter and there is a huge amount I’m going to miss,” she says. “I’m honored to have been a part of making GMU what it is today.”

Topics

Retirement

a Career Change

College of Engineering and Computing

systems engineering

Masonat50

Andrew Loerch, Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Systems Engineering and Operations Research, will retire this June after 22 years at George Mason.

Tama Moni — Thu, 26 May 2022 14:08:06 +0000

Andrew Loerch, Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Systems Engineering and Operations Research, will retire this June after 22 years at George Mason. Tama Moni Thu, 05/26/2022 - 10:08

Andy is one of the few Mason faculty members with a military background, having served as an Army Colonel prior to making the leap to academics. He has 26 years of active federal service under his belt, of which 15 were spent as a military operations research analyst. 

An ROTC grad, he made company commander as a First Lieutenant relatively quickly, which opened up an opportunity to go to graduate school. After that, “I did a tour here in Washington and went to Germany. When I was in Germany, I got a letter reading, ‘Congratulations, you’ve been selected for fully-funded graduate school,’ which was surprising since I didn’t ask for it and since I’d already been. It turned out it was for a Ph.D. In the army they only give you three years for it, and that’s hard.” 

This gave him a taste for a career in academe. Thinking he would retire as a Lieutenant Colonel; he began applying for academic jobs. “I applied for about 20 positions all around the Northeast. Do you know how many interviews I got? Zero!” After an unexpected promotion to Colonel and a few more years in the service, he received a call from Mason. “They said a lot of their students were military, government employees, defense contractors, etc. and they wanted to offer some classes in defense analysis.” Despite being “old” at the time for a new faculty member, he welcomed the opportunity. “It’s been a great second career.” 

“Andy was an outstanding teacher, a trusted mentor to numerous students, a researcher who brought in millions of dollars in funding, and an esteemed leader in the Military Operations Society,” said Ariela Sofer, Interim Divisional Dean for Engineering at the Volgenau School of Engineering. “Above all, I am indebted to him for his fourteen years of dedication and support service as my Associate Chair. He always took on departmental obligations, whether they involved big-picture matters or minute details, whether they were carefully planned activities or urgent crises. I am eternally grateful for his dedication, hard work, sage advice, and sense of humor.” 

Looking back at career highlights at Mason Andy says that, “Part of my job was the care and feeding of our military students. I advised every single one of them and many of them have gone on to be leaders in the defense analysis field.” In addition, he is proud of some of the department’s funded work, citing an important study on how the presence of women in military units impacts the units’ effectiveness.  

Andy is also a principal bassoonist of the Manassas Symphony Orchestra. “I was a clarinet player in elementary school and when I showed up at the beginning of sixth grade the music teacher said, ‘You’re going to play this,” and gave me a bassoon, which was about the same height as I was.” After getting away from it for many years, once his son began playing the clarinet Andy picked the bassoon up again, eventually having a teacher who was connected to the MSO, which led to his placement there. His wife is also musically talented and in fact is the principal flautist for the Orchestra.     

In retirement he plans to stay fit with pickle ball and cycling. He has consultant agreements that will keep him busy professionally, and intends at some point to come back and teach a handful of classes at Mason.

Topics

Retirement

transformative teaching